Ride-hailing Archives - MARKETECH APAC

Pakistan – Technology company Uber is discontinuing its ride-hailing services in five Pakistani cities namely Karachi, Islamabad, Multan, Faisalabad and Peshawar.

According to a report by Reuters, the exit is a move by Uber to reduce market overlap between the U.S. firm and its Middle East unit Careem.

However, Uber will still remain in the city of Lahore, where Uber is aiming at launching new products.

Former Uber drivers that are from the five cities can switch to Careem, a Dubai-based company purchased by Uber for US$3.1b in 2019 to dominate the ride-hailing markets in the Middle East and Pakistan.

“We know this is a difficult time for the teams who have worked incredibly hard to build this business over the past few years. We greatly appreciate everyone’s contributions and our priority is to minimise the impact to our employees, drivers, riders, and Hero partners who use the Uber app during this change in Karachi, Islamabad, Faisalabad, Multan and Peshawar,” the company said in a statement.

Uber first entered into Pakistan in 2016 as part of a US$250m push to expand into the Middle East and North Africa. Uber had also recently offloaded its food delivery services to Zomato, a local rival, and sold its shares in the company recently at an assumed unrealized loss of US$707m.

Singapore – Superapp Grab in Singapore was under fire in recent weeks following its decision to shorten the grace waiting period. In the new decision, users will be automatically charged a waiting fee of S$3 per five-minute waiting block if they keep the driver waiting for longer than three minutes. Meanwhile, a S$4 fee applies if a passenger cancels a booking more than three minutes after accepting one.

This decision has angered some consumers, leading to Singapore’s Transport Minister S. Iswaran questioned in Parliament on the Government’s supervision over ride-hailing platforms.

This was evident with the latest data from the latest YouGov BrandIndex that shows that Grab’s Buzz, Consideration and Customer Satisfaction scores among Singapore residents who say they are very to somewhat likely to use transport providers all significantly declined shortly after its new grace waiting period came into force.

In terms of media metrics, net Buzz scores, which measure whether consumers have heard more positive or negative things about a brand in the past two weeks, fell from 17.9 on 18 July to -2.6 by 1 August, indicating that more consumers heard negative than positive things about the brand.

Meanwhile, Grab’s Consideration scores, which track the percentage of Singapore residents who would consider using the platform in the next month, lost nearly 20 points from 47.1 on 18 July to 27.3 by 1 August, while the brand’s net Customer Satisfaction scores, which measure whether Grab’s current customers are generally satisfied or unsatisfied with the brand, dropped 14 points from 27.4 on 18 July to 13.0 by 1 August.

Lastly, data from YouGov BrandIndex shows that Grab’s Buzz, Consideration, Customer Satisfaction scores all started on an upward trajectory in the days after the parliamentary statement. Notably, net Buzz scores returned to positive territory of 1.4 by 4 August. However, the platform’s net Corporate Reputation scores, which improved from 2-3 August, declined again from 3-4 August.

Dhaka, Bangladesh – OBHAI, the locally-based ridesharing application, has expanded its online services to WhatsApp, tapping on the communication app’s ease of use and application to all walks of life.

The new WhatsApp integration fits the accessibility bill, as WhatsApp has 1.5 billion monthly active users around the globe, and 22% or around 40 Million users in Bangladesh.

“As Bangladesh marches forward towards a more sophisticated digital era, the masses are now more accustomed to having the world at the palm of their hands. As such, the frequency of communication via social media platforms, the likes of Facebook, Viber, WhatsApp etc. are increasing significantly,” the company said in their press statement.

It added, “Keeping the need and comfort of the citizens of Bangladesh in mind, OBHAI edged a step ahead and introduced its own WhatsApp service to complement its ride-sharing offerings, and to provide passengers a more personalized experience.”

Through the OBHAI app, users can book the OBHAI G (car), CNG (three-wheeler), or OBHAI Express (parcel) on WhatsApp. Commuters can save +8801313201222 in their address book as ‘OBHAI WhatsApp’ to which they will type ‘Hi’, as automated replies will pop up, to which one would simply punch in the corresponding number to their needed service.

“WhatsApp OBHAI booking will help a lot of OBHAI users to simply order an OBHAI Gari, OBHAI CNG, and even order OBHAI Express services in few keystrokes,” said Anis Ahmed, startup founder and investor at OBHAI.

OBHAI WhatsApp can be used by current OBHAI customers seamlessly, and all facilities including refund requests, complaints, billing, reviewing ride history, and suggestions will be available within minutes from OBHAI call center representatives.

The ridesharing app has existing services across 53 cities in Bangladesh.

Manila, Philippines – Ever since the coronavirus hit the greater civilians worldwide, every country had been caught dead in their tracks; no one had a master plan in hand, and for the longest time since the virus had been birthed, countries – its government bodies as well as businesses are making up their pandemic responses as they go along.

A strategy that has been resounding across nations is the restriction of transportation services to contain contact, and in the Philippines, the government vacillated since March in coding the nation along four different quarantine levels; albeit unique, all with a directive to halt public transportation.

APAC vehicle-routing tech SWAT Mobility pokes the Philippines during these strange times and seeks to present a solution to the nation’s transpo plight. Amid suspended mass transit systems and almost half to a hundred percent public utility vehicles disallowed, it has left the government imploring companies to implement shuttle services for their employees.

Just like a ride-hailing service, SWAT Mobility operates through a mobile app, but one where its services cater to a group-specific transpo pooling. In a virtual presser Aug. 19, Chief Revenue Officer Nicholas Stipp presents the two options, ‘Commute Pass” and “Just In Time” that companies can choose from to transit their workers.

For companies with staff that have stable shifts and predictable reporting times, “Commute Pass” offers a riding service where bookings are confirmed for the whole month with the same pick-up and drop-off location. “Just in Time” on the other hand, works well with types of companies whose employees have different reporting and knock-off times.

With “Just in Time,” passengers can book a ride up to 10 minutes before departure, where the system collates the bookings and generates optimized routes for the entire vehicle fleet within minutes.

This isn’t the first time that SWAT Mobility has looked into the Philippines as a possible market. Stipp said that around mid of 2019, the Singapore-headquartered company has already tagged the country as a top priority for expansion outside its HQ.

“I started coming [in the Philippines] about a year ago, but the question at that time was, how do we address commuting challenges under normal circumstances. As things have aggressed with COVID, we really accelerated our plans, so we planned to do a trial basis with [workspace solutions company] KMC, and see how things would go, and make sure everything is stabilized. But we have found that demand is just too strong, so we really scrambled in, and now we have multiple clients within a couple of months,” said Stipp.

Eventually, as the country eased to a more lenient community quarantine, and public transport has been gradually allowed to ply, Filipinos find themselves going back to point-to-point (P2P) buses as mode of transport, aside from the general public utility vehicles (PUVs). P2P buses are buses which have a predetermined single pick-up and drop-off points.

One of the pain points that SWAT Mobility vows to solve with their products is the aching process of arriving at the exact location of work, and thereafter reaching one’s place of home.

According to SWAT Mobility’s data, a person trying to get home from work via a P2P or PUV would get picked up from a common passenger point and be transported to a general drop-off that is still roughly four to five kilometers away from the person’s exact residential, incurring additional rides and more time spent on the road.

SWAT Mobility said that with their transport solutions, passengers are given a “close-to-door” service where vehicles await right outside employees’ workplaces, and each passenger transported to a drop-off point that would only need a person to travel a walking distance of a maximum 300 meters.

The company had first run a SWAT Mobility deployment for healthcare workers in Thailand in April, and has followed releasing the same mode of transport for workers of state-owned healthcare Philippine General Hospital (PGH).

As of current, PGH is utilizing SWAT Mobility’s “Just In Time” booking, where a 24-hour deployment is implemented with three shifts of round trips.

Aside from PGH, workspace solutions provider KMC has also tied up with SWAT Mobility to provide its employees with a Smart Staff Corporate Shuttle; a home-to-office and office-to-home transport for its 15 office sites which launched in July 2020.

Stipp said in a press statement that the company will continue working with the public and private sectors in the country to further alleviate the transportation burden off Filipino workers’ shoulders, and add resolve to the traffic problems that have always plagued the country.

He said, “SWAT Mobility’s core belief is that efficient transport is a fundamental right and with that, the company’s mission is to improve congestion as well as improve quality of life through a cloud mobility engine.”